


Meshes

by imperfectkreis



Category: Original Work
Genre: Eating Disorders, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mecha, Military, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 14:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4525200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sai's a pilot. Or, at least, she's going to be one. As long as she stays small enough, sharp enough. Maybe she doesn't like the fighting, but she likes the perks. She liked Jill with her glossy hair and green eyes. She likes Driss and Sumer even though their bodies are falling apart. She even starts to like the way her suit feels like a red-hot rash spreading across her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meshes

The scrape of Sai’s heels against the dusty-rose-white porcelain tile is a dead giveaway. She doesn’t bring her feet off the ground when she steps, instead letting them drag along. Some of the Augies have mastered the art of switching, of making their feet snap back into submission after long sessions in the Cage. Sai can’t do it though, not yet. Even before she started piloting, she didn’t have the most delicate step. Now she just clobbers around, even when her feet are unencumbered by metal and wire.

“Come here,” Jill’s mouth is set in a line. She never smiles. At least, Sai hasn’t seen it in the months since she enlisted.

Jill has been a pilot for a long time. Longer than anyone anticipated. Most Augies die out in the first couple years, combat fatalities mostly. Those who don’t get killed end up too broken bodied to continue. Either they get shot out, all mangled as the Cage closes down around them, or the strain of maintaining weight leads to organ failure. So maybe they get a new heart, all their intestines replaced, new esophagus to replace the burned one, all charred up with stomach acid. But none of them last long, not like Jill who is nearly thirty, but still slender with clear skin and shiny hair. Most of the other pilots look dull in comparison, their skin parched and hair falling out in clumps as months wear into years.

Obeying, Sai steps towards the older woman. Jill goes to work patting blush onto Sai’s cheeks. She’s heavy handed with it, muttering that under the dim, irregular lights it’s the only way it’ll show. Doesn’t matter much to Sai, one way or the other, but this is what pilots do, and she wants to be accepted. She wants the rush of power everyone talks about. She wants to be recognized as a pilot, as someone important. But there’s that nagging feeling that even the strangers will know she’s new, fresh, because she’s not so tattered.

“Okay, look,” Jill instructs.

Sai turns from facing Jill to look in the big bathroom mirror. The wide pane of glass takes up the whole wall. She hasn’t got the faintest idea why someone needs a mirror that big. Seeing herself, tight jeans, dark shirt, Sai admits she looks good, the slight pallor washed away from her dark cheeks with the red blush. Jill wastes no time dusting it over her own face as well, but with a lighter application. Makes her look rosy, good enough to eat.

“You should pick a lipstick.” Tugging at one of the drawers, Jill reveals dozens of tubes stashed away. Little, glittering objects in seamless packaging. Not bothering to look, she fishes one out for herself. Dark and plummy against her fair skin. “Hurry up, the others will be here soon.” She flits away, with barely a noise from her heels.

Sai doesn’t even know where to start. One after the other, she uncaps tube after tube, looking for something not too bright, not too dark. Nothing seems quite right and before too long she realizes she’s ruined any pretense of organization. Franticly, she tries to remember where each tube goes, smashing them around. Time runs out; Jill calls to her from the living room.

Without anything on her lips, Sai slinks into Jill’s living room. The others have arrived, Sumer and Driss. All made-up and as petite in stature as Sai, they are poster-girl Augies. Driss wears her bracers, a web of mesh and metal climbing up her tanned thighs before disappearing under her brightly sequined skirt. Her muscles atrophied too far on her last deployment, making her legs next to useless. Flippantly she claims the government owes her as much as the bracers, certainly more. Besides, they require barely any scandium, in the scheme of things.

The three, Sai, Sumer, Driss, stand at exactly five feet, pilot standard, but their heels, Driss’ false-legs too, put them on slightly different heights tonight. In her absolutely massive heels, Sumer is much taller. Even more than even Jill, who starts at an oversized five-three. There are whispers about that too, that she’s only an Augie at all because she’s sleeping with Zahn’s son. Sai doesn’t believe it for a second because if Jill has a rich man like that wrapped around her finger, why would she use him to put herself in danger? Why ten years of it? Not a lick of sense. Besides, Sai has seen Jill’s combat tapes, she’s phenomenal in the Cage. That’s why she’s alive. Why she keeps getting back in is anyone’s guess.

Sumer pops her gum loudly, breaking up the silence. Her red hair is done up in two long, thin pigtails that cascade down her back. She’s glossed them down, but the breakages are still apparent. There’s an allure to that too, she once assured Sai. Adds to the authenticity.

“Are we going or not?” Sumer pops again. Her mouth is always moving, one way or another. Even under layers of foundation, her freckles show through.

Jill shrugs, taking her cigarette pack and lighter from her purse before tossing the bag onto the couch. Her military id is already wedged into the box. “Lead the way, Lieutenant,” she nods toward Driss. “With those new legs the rest of us will have trouble keeping up.”

Sai’s not sure if that’s a joke or not. Driss laughs at it, in any case, marching out of Jill’s apartment. The bracers are nearly silent, but Sai thinks she can just make out the joints grinding. Waving Sai ahead, Jill lights her cigarette before taking up the rear, locking her door behind them as they exit.

TRACKS is just down the block from Jill’s. The neighborhood is expensive, prohibitively so for most pilots, even though they are compensated incredibly well. Driss and Sumer live in Westblock, though it’s rare for them both to be on leave at the same time. Without a deployment under her belt, Sai can’t afford to move out of the Institute, sleeping in one of the otherwise empty barracks. Sai wonders what they were built for, when they would ever have enough Cages or new pilots to fill the long rows of rooms and beds.

The street is utterly congested with bodies and bikes. Automobile curfew was over an hour ago. People pour into the streets, taking up all the empty spaces as they try to get from one shop to the next. The hum of humanity becomes more a comfort the longer Sai lives in the city. Nothing was ever so loud at home.

Driss winds them through the crowd avoiding obstacles with ease. Harsh lamplight washes out her skin, making her look almost white. Sai looks down at her own hands, bitten down nails and all, they still look dark despite the artificial glow.

Upon reaching the club, Driss pulls her military ID from inside her bra, flashing it at the doorman along with her teeth. He waves her through, then Sumer, who coyly holds her ID between her lips. When she pulls it away it’s got red lipstick on it. Sai has to fish in her back pocket for hers. She flips through a number of cards in her wallet, her driver’s licence, a credit chip, a cardboard scrap that says her next coffee is free, before finding her military card. Too late she supposes her licence would have done. Jill pushes her ahead and rolls her eyes at the doorman, a cigarette still hanging from her mouth and not bothering to show identification. He doesn’t ask for it.

Inside TRACKS the lights are dim, the music loud. Sai doesn’t recognize the song, but Jill told her earlier that they only play esoteric remixes of music for hipsters and dweebs. At the time, Sai felt too dumb to ask what that even meant. Now she only knows that she can’t recognize the song.

“Jill?” She grabs hold of Jill’s arm, making sure she knows she’s being spoken to. “How does this work, now that we’re here?”

Sighing, Jill grabs Sai by the wrist, dragging her over to one of the bars lined up against the wall. The music is still loud, but not quite as deafening away from the speakers. Under her feet, her shoes feel sticky already.

“You drink, you dance, you have a good fucking time. Maybe, if you like the look of someone, you take them home and fuck them until you forget yourself.”

Right, of course, Sai thinks. She was never one for going out back home. Then again, they didn’t have places like TRACKS. They had dingy neighborhood bars that were mostly places for fathers to get away from their wives for a few hours. Where young girls tried to pass for eighteen even though their tenth-grade teacher might have been sitting at one of the off-balance tables.

“I don’t have a home!” she realizes quite abruptly. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it so loud. With her mistake, Sai covers her mouth.

Jill still has an unlit cigarette in her mouth, bobbing as she talks. “Why do you think I gave you a key?”

Right. Sai pats her hand over the front pocket of her jeans, making sure the two keys and the electronic fob that Jill gave her earlier are still there. At the time, she hadn’t asked. But now it makes sense.

“What about you?” The last thing Sai wants is to be an intrusion. She still feels so fresh, like she’s a bother to everyone around her, though they’ve been nothing but accomodating. As cold and distant as Jill’s aura, her actions have been kind.

“I’m not going home,” Jill says, matter of factly. She turns to the barkeep to order, switching back to Sai to ask what she wants.

“Whatever you’re drinking is fine,” she means it too.

Jill narrows her eyes, orders a vodka and a beer. Sai assumes the beer is for her, that Jill thinks she’s some sort of lightweight. Maybe she is, but it still stings that a woman she pretty much admires would think poorly of her. Even on something as trivial as her alcohol tolerance.

When the drinks come, Sai is shocked that Jill passes the clear liquid to her, keeping the beer bottle to herself. “Word of advice,” Jill starts, “never order what I’m having.” Stalking away, Jill disappears into the crowd, leaving Sai behind.

She wonders what Jill meant by that, sipping down the vodka and letting it burn inside her mouth. At the tail end of it she does scrunch up her face at the taste. Damnit, maybe she wanted that beer. She crosses her arms in front of her chest, the glass in one hand and her other in a fist, observing the crowd of people pressed together on the dance floor. Sai can’t make out any of the other pilots, but given how short they are, it’s not a surprise, they just vanish in the waves of taller, thicker bodies.

The way Jill made it sound, when she first pitched the idea of going out that morning, attention would just flock their way. People loved pilots. Well, didn’t love, wanted to be in their orbit. Didn’t matter if you were pretty, most of them weren’t. They were scrawny wisps of women. What mattered was the status. Being fine-boned, everyone would make assumptions, crawl up and ask what the Cage was like, buy them drinks and try to make them wild.

Sai just saw a hunk of moulded flesh that didn’t give a damn about her. The rhythm of the music felt nice against her skin, though. A mechanical pulse that reminded her of the Cage sim she had practiced on during training. She liked the sim better than the real thing, being confronted with that much metal bone and circuitry that she didn’t understand. And the way it wove itself across her body like a rash kept her up at night, remembering the itch. But this, this sort of social repayment, is supposed to make up for the uneasiness of her service.

“Hey,” the owner of the voice, deep, nice, has a beer in one hand. He puts the other on her shoulder, leaning in close to her ear. “You’re here with the others, aren’t you?”

“Others?” Sai asks.

He leans in again. She can feel the warmth of his voice mixing with the vodka and spreading across her skin. With the lights so low, she’s not sure if he’s handsome. But he’s tall and broad and up this close he smells real nice. Like the open air back home all bottled up.

“The pilots?” he asks.

Sai nods, maybe too enthusiastically. “Yes!” Her hand reaches for her ID before she realizes how silly that is. She’s not supposed to prove it to him. He’s already interested, so she’s supposed to stay cool, detached. Like Jill! She wishes she had something to chew on, to keep her mouth busy so she doesn’t say too much.

“Do you want a drink?” His hand is off of her, going for his wallet instead.

Even on her ensigns salary, she might make more than this man. He looks put together enough, with dark dress slacks and a light colored fitted tee that skims against his body. Sai notices what nice arms he has, muscular, almost to the point of being too much. In another neighborhood she might have thought him a laborer, but that doesn’t make any sense here. She spends so much time considering what his job might be she forgets to answer his question.

“Oh, vodka,” she meant to say ‘beer.’

He smiles and Sai can finally confirm he’s handsome enough, with stubble brushing his cheeks, the rose of liquor lighting his skin just above where the facial hair ends. “Of course.”

In reality she doesn’t want the second glass of vodka. She wants to play act this scenario that has been going through her mind since this morning. Taking a man to bed, riding him, her fists pounding into his chest until she comes undone in waves of pleasure. It’s been so damn long Sai feels like she might burst. She hasn’t been with someone since her recruitment months ago. Right now, she just wants some of the benefits that come with her occupation.

A couple of years, and this will all be over. Either dead or wrecked, the two fates of pilots. Until then, Sai wants to make the most of it.

She dashes down the vodka so fast she chokes on it. That wasn’t cool; that wasn’t Jill. But Jill is who-knows-where so she probably didn’t see it. And even if she had, she probably wouldn’t say anything. Just like she didn’t say anything about the fact Sai had come out of the bathroom without any lipstick on.

The man rubs her back as she coughs. When she looks up, she can feel the water in her eyes. While she got the second glass down, she can feel the first creeping through her, making her light-headed, a little reckless. But not too much because pilots walk through the world with that aura of immunity. Sai tells herself that she’s got it now. She’s got it.

“You want to come with me?” Sai doesn’t have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about her directness.

He smiles, showing his teeth just a little. They’re so white and straight, makes Sai sort of aware that hers aren’t either of those things. “You don’t even know my name.”

It’s not a ‘yes,’ but not a ‘no’ either. “We can fill in the details on the way there?” She grabs his wrist, circling it with her narrow fingers.

“Vale,” he says before taking a step towards her.

“Vale? Oh!” she realizes. “Vale, that’s your name.”

He nods.

Keeping his wrist in her hand, Sai leads him from the darkness into the overlit street, still crowded with people. Her foot catches on a gap in the pavement, but she rights herself before Vale has to catch her. She has got to remember to pick up her feet, especially in these shoes.

As they cross the distance to Jill’s apartment, strangers rub against her. The street is so densely populated, they can’t help but come in contact with others. In a way, it’s not so terrifying, really. The Cage keeps everything out, so maybe it’s nice to let these people in, strange though they may be. Maybe it’s the vodka talking.

She pulls the fob from her pocket, the two keys falling loose to the pavement. Pressing the fob against the sensor, the door unlatches. Vale has already retrieved the keys. He doesn’t fight her, following obediently behind as they climb the stairs. At the second flight, Sai has to take a moment to breath. She’s too winded. Vale rubs her back like he did in the club.

“Are you alright?” His voice is full of concern.

Sai realizes she hasn’t told him her name, but now seems like such a weird time to tell him. It seems like a weird time to say anything but just at the tip of her tongue are the words ‘I’m not okay.’ Because how is she supposed to be? She’s been starving herself for a year to make sure she’d make weight, so that when the recruiters came to her town, they saw a young woman that was perfectly to spec to fit in their uniform Cages. How does she explain that this is the most terrifying and most thrilling thing to happen in her life because now, now she gets to be a big damn hero? Instead of explaining, Sai laughs, making it harder to catch her breath, but it’s worth it. Damn is it worth it.

“Yeah,” she smiles. “I’m Sai, and I’m great.”

“I think you’re also drunk.” Vale is smiling too.

“Yup, probably.” Sai starts up the next step, hoping Vale will keep following.

He does, all the way up to Jill’s apartment. Takes her two tries to get the keys in the right order. Vale shuts the door behind them, locks it too because she’s already forgotten. She catches the way his eyes skim the room.

“Wow.”

Jill’s place is nice. Really, really damn nice. The kind of nice that kind of makes Sai believe that she is really seeing that filthy rich son of Zahn’s because could even a commander’s salary afford the place? Probably not. And all of it is so perfectly arranged, white carpet, black couch, coordinating lampshades and end tables. It’s like something out of a magazine.

“I would have never guessed.” Vale spins around, taking the whole place in.

Sai covers her mouth. “Oh! No, no! It’s not my place. It belongs to one of the other pilots.” Quite suddenly she doesn’t want to be laying claim to things that aren’t hers. Even though Jill offered her the apartment for the night, she feels weird pretending like it’s hers. “I still live at the Institute.”

Damn, Sai’s pretty sure that’s too much information.

“Oh,” Vale is visibly nervous and Sai has the crazy idea of sending him out, heading back to TRACKS, and trying her luck again on another poor sod.

Instead, Sai careenes straight off the cliff she is clearly approaching full speed. “There’s a guest bedroom this way?” Her heels sink into the carpet while she holds Vale by both wrists. She assumes he will stay. More than that, she expects it of him. This is what she has been promised.

Vale leans down, kisses her, briefly before withdrawing. “Not yet.”

She doesn’t know what sort of answer that is. Because there is nothing more to this encounter than a healthy body and one destined for decomposition. There isn’t a ‘yet’ worth chasing, not on her own account. But she loosens her grip and lets him leave. No way back, only his one name left behind.

The door clicks closed behind him. Sai rushes to lock it. She breathes hard, heavy, trying to have the wind catch up to her. There’s a nagging feeling in her chest that she failed some sort of test. What it was, she’s not sure yet.


End file.
